Iran Suffers Flash Flooding After Cloud-Seeding to Combat Drought

Iran made an all-out effort last week to combat a severe drought by seeding the clouds with chemicals to produce rain. The technique appears to have worked all too well, as heavy rainfall caused flooding in portions of western Iran on Monday. Iran grapples with chronic water shortages in the best of years, but the past six years have been among the worst, with chronic drought conditions so severe that partially evacuating the capital city of Tehran was on the table.

Writing at Forbes on Sunday, environmental scientist Kaveh Madani of the U.N. University Institute for Water, Environment, and Health — whose research has been focused on Iran’s “water bankruptcy” — argued that poor water management by the Iranian country has greatly exacerbated the problem: For decades, Iranian decision-makers treated water as a limitless resource and environmental rights as negotiable. Water-intensive irrigated agriculture was promoted in some of the driest landscapes on earth in the name of food self-sufficiency, food security, and “resistance” to foreign pressure. Heavily subsidized water and electricity encouraged wasteful use and unrestricted pumping of groundwater. Dam building and inter-basin transfers became symbols of national pride and strength. Leaders had a “hydraulic mission”: putting every drop of water available across the nation into use and not allowing any drop of water to be “wasted” into the seas, lakes, and wetlands.

Madani further faulted the regime in Tehran for being too preoccupied with its “resistance economy” propaganda, perpetually putting off necessary reforms and blaming all of its problems on U.S. sanctions. The government constantly lies to its subjects about water availability and conceals data, thwarting citizens who might have taken private measures to ameliorate the drought. Iranian officials mutter conspiracy theoriesabout “cloud theft” and “weather manipulation” instead of dealing with their problems. (Ed note: There are between 9 and 10 million people living within the city of Tehran. What will they do, where will they go?)  (Read More)